Sound policies, adequate resources and identifying champions became recurring themes as past recipients of the annual Rising Star Deputy Vice-Chancellor (DVC) and DVC of the Year Awards of the Entrepreneurship Development in Higher Education (EDHE) programme shared insights into building an entrepreneurial university from scratch.
These DVCs had gathered alongside deans, their deputies and executive directors from South Africa’s public universities in Cape Town from 21 to 22 June for the annual Executive Leadership Workshop (ELW) of the EDHE programme. This annual event equips the academy’s senior leadership to lead strategically in developing their institutions into entrepreneurial universities. The workshops tackle entrepreneurship from the perspectives of teaching and learning, research, innovation and commercialisation.
The annual DVC of the Year Awards seek to recognise the DVCs who provide exceptional support backing for entrepreneurship development at their institutions. University communities nominate candidates based on a set of criteria including evidence of advocacy for entrepreneurship, establishing support structures and policies, and visibility in networks that nurture entrepreneurship.